A Devotion from A.W. Tozer

One distinguishing mark of those first Christians was a supernatural radiance that shined

out from within them. The sun had come up in their hearts and its warmth and light made

unnecessary any secondary sources of assurance.

They had the inner witness. They knew with an immediate awareness that required no

jockeying of evidence to give them a feeling of certainty. Great power and great grace marked

their lives, enabling them to rejoice to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.

It is obvious that the average evangelical Christian today is without this radiance. The

efforts of some of our teachers to cheer up our drooping spirits are futile because those same

teachers reject the very phenomenon that would naturally produce joy, namely, the inner

witness …: “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself” (1 John 5:10).

[D]ivine joy is the privilege of all consecrated believers.… The world must see

the light of heaven in our faces if it would believe in the reality of our religion.